Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Cape Cod







The day started off fairly routinely with stops at two quilt shops followed by an exquisitely enjoyable lunch at the Marathon, an unpretentious seafood shack run by a Greek family (there's a sizable Greek community throughout Massachusetts!)

Then it was off to the National Seashore Visitors' Center to learn about the geological history of the Cape Cod area – we're talking glaciers thousands of years ago that left "Kettles" – holes with large ice cubes that became fresh-water ponds – and the force of ocean erosion that moves the sand around on an almost daily basis.

A small side note was a single tree with more color than we'd seen almost anywhere else.

The view from
the back of the Visitors' Center was of the "salt pond" for which it was named (as well as the ocean beyond it.) Since most of the ponds on Cape Cod were fresh water as noted above, the existence of a pond open to the ocean was considered worthy of its own name.

Just up the road from the Visitors' Center is the Nauset Light House. Much of Cape Cod is sand dunes and somewhat stunted vegetation, but the view is dominated even from miles away by the Pilgrim Monument mentioned in the rant a couple e-mails back.

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